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Archive for the 'District Politics' Category

The Beutler Files: 30 Cent Edition

Published by William Beutler on July 3, 2008 in District Politics, Gun politics, Journalist Bloggers, Metapost and William Beutler. 1 Comment

The biggest news in the District’s blogging circles yesterday had nothing to do with John McCain’s campaign shakeup or Barack Obama’s rhetorical shift centerward but the inexplicable shooting of one of liberal blogging’s up-and-comers, Brian Beutler.

Early in the day I’d seen Dave Weigel’s IM message reading “Brian Beutler for Batman/Mayor” but did not understand the context. Hours later the news broke beyond his close friends, and thankfully along with it that he is hospitalized at Washington Hospital Center and should recover.

The blog tributes flowed in, bringing with it a wave of complaints about the relative safety of Northwest Washington. Megan McArdle started with “I just found out a friend of mine got shot three times in the stomach last night in my neighborhood during a mugging,” and though vowing to delete any opportunistic comments about District v. Heller, she couldn’t avoid addressing public safety:

When DC does try to “do something”, it’s something stupid and quasi-fascist like locking down neighborhoods instead of putting more cops on the beat and using the advanced police tactics that are now the norm in every other city. From what I know, Fenty seems like a better mayor than DC’s previous disasters, but the city government remains corrupt and incompetent. No one should have to spend their lives feeling this afraid.

The American Spectator’s J.P. Freire concurred:

I can only echo Megan’s thoughts about the state of crime (and crime-fighting) in this city — it reminds me of the needless and violent murder of the New York Times’s David Rosenbaum, who was left unaided, ailing on the sidewalk, ignored in his death. There’s an illusion of safety in this city, conveyed by the economic development and the swollen demographics familiar from college. But we’re not on college campuses where things feel safe (and are sometimes very much not). We’re in a city, a particularly criminal one.

John Aravosis offered more details on the neighborhood in question:

The neighborhood he was shot in, like a 5 minute walk from me, has an ongoing gang war on the very corner he was shot. It’s been going on for years. And years. And years. But DC is such an inept city, that all we hear about is how fighting crime is hard work. Sound familiar? I’ve looked at condos right next to where he was shot. $400,000 for a one bedroom. I laugh when I see places like that, because I know there’s a gang war going on about 100 feet away. And now this would be our second mugging-shooting we’ve had in the last month or so.

And I’m pretty much in agreement with all of this. I was once the victim of random violence myself, albeit of a much less serious nature: more than a year ago I was struck in the head by an unseen assailant at about 3:00 a.m. on a side-street just above Florida Avenue. It wasn’t a mugging; I just kept walking, hoping that no sudden movements would pay off, and there was no follow-up attack.

I’m pretty sure it was done on a dare or for the thrill, likely both. And it shook me from my complacency, at least for awhile. Shortly after, I moved one neighborhood over — to approximately three blocks north of where Beutler was shot on Wednesday morning.

But it wasn’t all (understandable) hand-wringing about the state of the city. Nicknaming Beutler “30 Cent” after the projectile-prone rapper, Dave Weigel reported:

Collaboration began on a lengthy list of “Brian Beutler Facts,” inspired by the (now surely played out) list of oddball stories of Chuck Norris. Sample entries: “Lance Armstrong wears a Brian Beutler bracelet.” “The active ingredient in Levitra is Brian Beutler.” “Meatloaf would do that for Brian Beutler.”

And Julian Sanchez followed up:

Brian Beutler is awesome. If you read his phenomenal reporting, count yourself lucky. If you know him, count yourself even luckier. (2) You can add your wishes for a speedy recovery at the first link. I’m not the praying sort, but if you are, it couldn’t do any harm.

I echo those sentiments.

When Beutler first moved to town a few years ago, we had a brief jocular exchange on a post at my personal blog, The Washington Canard, also titled “The Beutler Files”.

Since then I haven’t met Beutler in person, but in this small world of Washington bloggers, we share more than a few acquaintances. And as you may have already noticed, we share a last name (if not the pronunciation thereof).

There’s room in this town for the both of us, and let’s hope it stays that way for a long time to come.

The D.C. Madam Suicide: Conspiring to Avoid the Obvious

Published by William Beutler on May 1, 2008 in Breaking News, Conspiracy Theories, District Politics, Leftosphere vs. Rightosphere, Public policy and William Beutler. 1 Comment

The so-called “DC madam,” Deborah Jeane Palfrey, died in an apparent suicide yesterday. Apparent to most, that is. As others suspected and even invited, it’s apparently murder to a few conspiracy theorists on the left.

Down With Tyranny, one of the least responsible blogs in existence, began its headline with “WHO MURDERED THE DC MADAM?” The Raw Story plays it straight, but the comments do not and the third just says “THEY MURDERED HER.” Pam’s House Blend raises the possibility, but admitted it may be “tin foil hat.” BooMan Tribune and The Reaction skirt the same line. But it’s not just the left: I’ve read Michael Silence at the Knoxville News for years, and I’m appalled to see him outright asking, “was it really suicide?” The commenters are no better.

To be fair, not all are doing this. The Brad Blog, known for relentlessly pursuing even the least plausible of voter fraud theories, apparently had relied upon her as a source, and sends his condolences. And some congratulations are due to Gawker’s Alex Pareene, who turns in perhaps his most cautious blog post ever.

One thing that anyone who wishes to speculate about such matters should think about: If someone was going to kill her, they probably would have done it before she turned over her phone records to ABC News. As Sister Toldjah points out, she was facing imminent sentencing and had recently promised she would not go back to jail. Although this sounds like a futile protest of the convicted, if the conspiratorial guessing leaned in the other direction, no doubt some would be playing this up as a key fact.

It bothers me that few are taking time to think about the unjust nature of prostitution laws. That she was prosecuted where the johns were not, and frankly that prostitution laws in most jurisdictions, the District included, take the same prohibitionary stance toward it that has made the drug war and the 18th amendment such obvious public policy failures. Palfrey’s service was fundamentally the same as businesses which operate legally in Nevada, and certainly a better model for what such a service should look like, compared to streetwalking, which is far more dangerous.

Didn’t mean to get on a soapbox here, but the Palfrey case should be considered a prime exhibit of why the current law is broken. Decriminalizing something does not equal a stamp of approval, only an acknowledgment that prohibition is poor public policy. Thanks in part to Eliot Spitzer, it’s been a banner year for prostitution busts already. The circumstances of his case made it an unlikely point to begin discussing a different approach to the problem of prostitution. Here’s hoping the death of Ms. Palfrey will be different.

How Can There Be So Little Interest In Government? (Some Questions Answer Themselves)

Published by William Beutler on September 23, 2006 in District Politics, Elections and The New Republic. 0 Comments

In an online-only article Friday, TNR assistant editor Marisa Katz sought to explain the low turnout (35%) in the contested Democratic mayoral primary in DC. Although she almost puts forth a plausible enough argument (more than once), the piece gets tangled up in its own arguments and fails to make its point, whatever that’s supposed to be. The most glaring problem is a simple misrepresentation, and one that should be readily apparent to any District resident circa fall 2002:

Turnout in the primary — a “watershed” contest to replace outgoing two-term Mayor Anthony Williams — was a measly 35 percent among registered Democrats in this almost exclusively Democratic city. That pales in comparison with the most recent significant mayoral elections in Philadelphia and Baltimore, which both saw turnout well into the 40s. More embarrassing, it’s only a couple points higher than in 2002, when Williams’s reelection was so secure that he ran as a write-in candidate.

Katz’s telling creates an image of Williams as political Houdini: And for my next trick, I’ll seek re-election with one hand tied behind my back! The Post seems to have moved its 2002 primary coverage offline, but the DC Watch website accurately names the reason for Williams’ write-in candidacy as “insufficient signatures on petition,” and Wikipedia’s entry on Williams gives a fuller story:

In the 2002 primary, the mayor needed to collect signatures from voters to get his name on the ballot. The firm that he hired to do this had some irregularities with the names on petitions. Examples of faulty signatures on his petitions included Tony Blair, Billy Joel, and Robin Hood. As a result of the dodgy petitions, Williams was fined $277,700 by the District of Columbia Board of Elections and Ethics and was kicked off the ballot, forcing him to run as a write-in candidate.

That sentence would have never made it past the copy desk at the Washington City Paper. Maybe we could consider this another example of DC political types not paying attention to city politics. That being the thing she’s trying to diagnose here, as will become apparent:

I’m not so sure the turnout was all that low, at least going on her examples. She compares DC’s turnout unfavorably with Philly and Baltimore, but she doesn’t identify whether she means the primary or general election of each. The 2003 Philly mayor’s race was hotly contested up to November, but if that contest — featuring physical violence and wiretapping — only pulled in forty-something percent of the electorate, maybe 35% isn’t all that low.

Sure, the 2006 primary turnout was on the low end — but as Henny Youngman would say, “Compared to what?” [Note: Out of the District, Philly and Baltimore, the only primary turnout by registration figures I could find were from the District.]

The article has other problems besides:

Anthony Downs would say [a pollster friend who hadn't been following the mayor's race] was just being rational. In his 1957 essay, An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy, Downs argued that voters want to support candidates who, if elected, give them the greatest utility. But, because it can take a lot of time to divine the distinctions between candidates (and because, even if a voter picks “correctly,” the potential benefits are uncertain and probably small), it makes sense for a voter to remain fairly uniformed [sic]. Presumably the theory applies to political strategists just as well as it does to those who have never given any thought to how to engage an undecided voter.

Economists might say her friend was being rational, all right, but they would be more specific: She displayed what’s called “rational ignorance.” Ms. Katz is right to credit Mr. Downs with the theory, but I’m afraid her explanation — especially with the misplaced emphasis on the concept of utility — doesn’t do it justice. More economics-related language follows:

I’m also a believer in the division of political labor. There are a lot of legitimate political issues out there — some local and some national — and not even the most politically active person can worry about them all. Nor, in a healthy body politic, should they have to. Some people can work to bring attention to the threat of nuclear terrorism while others advocate on behalf of affordable health care. Some people may be hard-pressed to name their member of Congress, but they may have the date of every neighborhood meeting marked on the calendar.

What, do political consultants not care how their children’s schools are run? Or how their tax dollars are used to build the new baseball stadium? Actually, Katz had already dismissed the notion that the low turnout was attributable to political professionals:

Why does the most political city in the country seem to care so little about the right to vote? Of course, not everyone in this town is in politics. And the negative side of the city’s recent and ongoing gentrification has no doubt encouraged disaffection among some residents. Still, the federal government is the region’s largest employer. According to census data, one out of four workers in the city work for government at some level. And that figure doesn’t capture the lobbyists, analysts, and reporters who make a living out of government watching and influencing. How can there be so little interest in government?

There’s almost too many stupid ideas here to address them all: First of all, would gentrification (ooh! scary!) turn people off politics? If it’s the bogeyman Katz implies, shouldn’t that rile up the local activists? More importantly, if the transient professionals and privately-employed political strategists are leaving the nitty gritty of local politics to the civil servants who make up the vast majority of federal employees, who do the government employees leave it up to? Actually, based on the condition of the roads around here, the answer would seem to be no one.

So I’m not trying to claim DC is anybody’s idea of a participatory democracy, but when she asks “How can there be so little interest in government?” there are several answers she doesn’t consider:

  • The government isn’t very interesting (the differences between mayor-in-waiting Adrian Fenty and his closest rival, Linda Cropp, were more about style than substance).
  • Assuming they’re numerous enough to matter, perhaps the political professionals get enough politics at work.
  • Perhaps the locals are turned off because they don’t have full federal representation (a possibility she sets up, but never develops).
  • And we could answer with another question: Why doesn’t the same question apply to other cities — like, say, Philly and Balmer?

Editor, please! Ah, they’re probably too busy blogging.